The Crystal Cave

As you probably recall, I recently picked up the Merlin quadrilogy – no, I don’t consider the fifth associated book to be truly part of the series – during a Chirp promotion.

I’ve just finished listening to the first book, because as I’ve mentioned before, listening to audiobooks of books I already have practically memorized turns out to be something I like to do. I’ve read these books quite a few times, and though I don’t know how young I was when I read The Crystal Cave for the first time, I do remember – I’m not making this up – reading the part where Merlin’s uncle gives him a poisoned apricot and Merlin says, “I don’t want it. Look, you can see it’s black inside,” and his uncle gets spooked and tells Merlin to stay away from him. If you’ve read the book, you probably remember that scene.

My point is, the first time I read this book, I remember reading that scene several times, trying to figure out what was going on. I didn’t understand that the uncle had poisoned the apricot. (This is made explicit, but either I hadn’t read that part or I still wasn’t sure. I know I wasn’t sure whether Merlin was seeing something real (“It’s black inside”) or something figurative. THAT is how young I was. And even then, I loved this story, for the language, the description, the way you can sink into it because the pacing doesn’t drag you along at breakneck speed. The characters too, though I’m sure a lot must have puzzled me if I wasn’t sure what was going on with the apricot.

Anyway, consider this scene:

***

“Merlin? Merlin Emrys?”

The echo died away to an ordinary voice. The vision faded. I was sitting on my stool in Ambrosius’ room, looking at my hands clasping my knees. Ambrosius had risen and was standing over me, between me and the fire. The servant had gone, and we were alone.

At the repetition of my name, I blinked and roused.

He was speaking. “What do you see, there in the fire?”

I answered without looking up. “A grove of white thorn on a hillside, and a girl on a brown pony, and a young man with the dragon brooch on his shoulder, and the mist knee-high.”

I heard him draw a long breath. Then his hand  came and took me by the chin and lifted my face. His gaze was intent and fierce.

“It’s true, then, this Sight of yours. I have heard, and now – beyond all doubt, it is true. I thought so that first night by the standing stone, but that could have been anything – a dream, a boy’s story, a lucky guess to catch my interest. But this … I was right about you.” He lifted his hand from my face and straightened. “Did you see the girl’s face?”

I nodded.

“And the man’s?”

I met his eyes then. “Yes, sir.”

He turned sharply away and stood with his head bent. Once more he picked up the stilus, turning it over and over with his fingers. After a moment, he said, “How long have you known?”

“Only since I rode in tonight. It was something Cadell said, and then I remembered things, and how your brother looked tonight when he saw me wearing this.” I touched the dragon brooch at my throat.

He glanced, then nodded. “Is this the first time you had this – vision?”

“Yes. I had no idea. Now, it seems strange I never even suspected – but I swear I did not.”

He stood silent, one hand spread on the table. I don’t know what I had expected, but I had never thought to see the great Aurelius Ambrosius at a loss for words.

… … …

[Ambrosius explains how he met Merlin’s mother, why he never went back to bring her away with him, why he never realized she had borne a child. It’s a good explanation. There’s little or nothing to resent in any of this.

Also, the author, with two precisely constructed sentences, reduces the tragedy of this backstory:

And then the other long love stepped in to supersede [the memory of her lover], and the priests took over, and the winter tryst was forgotten. Except for the child, so like his father, but once her duty to him was done, she could go to the solitude and peace which – all those years ago – had sent her riding alone up the valley, as later I was to ride out alone by the same path, and looking perhaps for the same things.]

… … …

I jumped when he spoke again. “How hard a time of it did you have, as a no-man’s-child?”

“Hard enough.”

“You believe me when I say I didn’t know?”

“I believe anything you tell me, my lord.”

“Do you hate me for this, very much, Merlin?”

I said slowly, looking down at my hands, “There is one thing about being a bastard and a no-man’s-child. You are free to imagine your father. You can picture for yourself the worst and the best; you can make your father for yourself, in the image of the moment. From the time I was big enough to understand what I was, I saw my father in every soldier and every prince and every priest. And I saw him, too, in every handsome slave in the kingdom of South Wales.

He spoke very gently, above me. “And now you see him in truth, Merlin Emrys. I asked you, do you hate me for the kind of life I gave you?”

I didn’t look up. I answered, with my eyes on the floor, “Since I was a child, I have had the world to choose from for a father. Out of them all, Aurelius Ambrosius, I would have chosen you.”

Silence. The flames leapt like heartbeat.

***

And what I thought, listening to this scene, was: I could have written this. I mean, I remembered this scene clearly, including the essential lines of dialogue, but even so, this thought struck me clearly, perhaps because it’s been a while, maybe because audio slows down the experience of reading.

Regardless, this is really close to how I would have written this scene – how I would have handled the dialogue and the bits of description, the adverbs, the give and take. But beyond that level of style, if I wrote this kind of scene, between a twelve-year-old bastard and his father, this is exactly how that scene would go. Including the decision to be retroactively kind to Niniene, to gentle the tragedy, to make sure there is no reasonable foundation for resentment in this backstory. All of this. Everything.

This really struck me. As far as I know, I have never, not once, named Mary Stewart as an important influence on my writing. But I think, next time somebody asks me about that, I’ll remember her name.

This also makes me wonder what other books I might have read – maybe read over and over, starting when I was … Twelve? Ten? I don’t know. The publication date offers no clue because when The Crystal Cave was first published, I was probably just about reading Dick and Jane books. All I know is, I first read it when I was really young, apparently during the period when I was absorbing elements of style and developing strong opinions about how relationships should work in stories. I’ve always thought that I (and most people) absorb that sense of style and the deep foundation of taste in novels at around the age of fourteen. Now I think maybe the novels you choose to read at that age express the foundation that has already been formed, even earlier than that. At twelve, or ten. Maybe by novels sophisticated enough that they’re a little out of your reach, something to stretch toward.

This was just something interesting that I had never noticed before.